Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Bend your left knee so that your knee, shin, and foot are on the floor, parallel with your pelvis. Bend your right knee and place it on top of your left ankle so that your right knee is above your left ankle and your right ankle is above your left knee. To intensify the stretch, place your hands in front of your legs and very slowly walk them out as you lean forward. Stay relaxed and breathe. Repeat with the other leg.
My exercise of choice here is floor-slide mountain climbers. You will need some furniture moving pads, Valslides, or something similar that will slide smoothly on your floor. Paper plates even work well in a pinch. Put your feet on the sliders and move into a push-up position. To perform the movement, simply pull one knee at a time up toward your chest, going as high as you can while keeping your foot on the slider. You can alternate legs with each rep or do sets of one leg at a time. Don't expect it to be easy.
Tight hips can stem from multiple things, so I recommend you see a physical therapist, physiotherapist, or personal trainer to help identify the actual issue. Like I mentioned before, your hip flexors may be tight because they are shortened and weakened from desk jockeying all day, or maybe your workout is leading to a muscular imbalance. Perhaps your back is weak and some muscles are pulling double duty, creating extra tension. There’s also a good chance your core is weak and your glutes are underdeveloped.
The top of the sartorius muscle attaches to the anterior superior iliac crest. Anterior is the portion toward the front of the body, superior is the part toward the head, and iliac crest is the top border of the ilium. The muscle crosses the upper leg to attach to the tibia, also known as the shin bone. The femoral nerve supplies the sartorius muscle with nerves. The sartorius muscle aids in knee and hip flexion and rotation of the thigh and tibia.

The hip flexors are the group of muscles that allow you to lift your knees toward your chest and bend forward from the hips. What is collectively referred to as the hip flexors is actually a group of muscles that includes the iliopsoas, the thigh muscles (rectus femoris, Sartorius and tensor fasciae latae), and the inner thigh muscles (adductor longus and brevis, pectineus and gracilis).

Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent. Cross your right ankle over your left knee. Keeping your lower back pressed into the floor, pull your left knee in towards the chest by threading your hands between your legs and pulling gently on your left thigh. Think about keeping your right knee open to really stretch your hip. You’ll feel a little extra lovin’ in the outside of your hip with this one! Repeat on the other side.

Stretching is not only for athletes and yogis. Anyone who wants to improve their flexibility and range of motion should consider performing a few stretches every day. People with sedentary lifestyles, in particular, should stretch daily to help improve their mobility. Sedentary individuals are generally more prone to injuries because their tight muscles aren’t acclimated to sudden or jerky movements.

To achieve this stretch, start out on your hands and knees. Slowly widen your knees out as far as they can go, and make sure to keep your lower legs in line with your knees. Your lower legs and feet should be parallel with one another. Next, ease your upper body forward on your forearms and reach forward until you feel the stretch. Hold this pose for about 10 seconds.
Once you know where each muscle attaches you can identify specific weakness by designing exercises that target a smaller group of muscles or positions instead of all of them at once. To know which ones are tight or weak strengthen your knowledge of the anatomy of hip flexion and function of the various muscles. Then, design exercises that target each muscle more independently to explore the strength of each one. This is often called corrective exercise.
I like to think of myself as a powerful, modern Highland warrior, or maybe a Viking. Had I been born 1,100 years ago I would have leapt first off the longboat to battle hundreds of enemies with a giant axe, or so the fantasy goes. But, it didn't take strength coach Matt Wattles long to put a pin in that balloon. All he had to do was ask me to raise my toes all the way up to his hands, and in an instant, I felt like a senior citizen with a hip replacement. That movement was hard.

Muscle Imbalances – The front of your hips, your hip flexors, are the muscles that will tighten and shorten while you are sitting for hours each day. While you are sitting, the back of your hips, your glutes and your hip extensors, are being overstretched. But just because they are being tightened and stretched respectively, doesn’t benefit either of them. They are also being weakened because of the lack of use of each muscle group.

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How to: Lie on your back with your right knee bent and foot flat on the floor (a). With your left leg fully extended, press into your right foot to shift onto your left hip. This is your starting position (b). Then, squeeze your right glutes to press your left hip open until you feel a stretch, pause, then return to start. That’s one rep (c). Perform six to eight reps, then repeat on the opposite side.